Tanker flips on ranch road
Eyewitnesses to the fatal crash of a water tanker truck near Fowlerton last week reported to emergency responders that they had seen the vehicle veer out of its lane and roll over twice.
Reports from both the Texas Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol and the La Salle County Sheriff’s Office have confirmed that Lisbel Navarro Ramos, 36, of Austin was killed in the freighter’s cab when it was destroyed on Camarone Ranch Road shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday, March 18.
The sheriff’s office noted that a caller to the county’s emergency dispatch reported that Ramos was dead, indicating the crash witness had examined the wreckage.
Ramos had been traveling west on the two-lane ranch road in a 2007 Freightliner for Infiltrate Oilfied Services, a company headquartered in Leming, Texas.
La Salle Deputy Nicholas Codiga assisted Highway Patrol troopers at the scene, joined by members of the La Salle Fire Rescue.
Preliminary investigations into the crash, based on wreck and road studies and on statements provided by witnesses, have indicated Ramos lost steering control after the tanker drifted out of its lane of travel, and may have attempted a corrective maneuver that ended with the rig tipping sideways at speed.
The Highway Patrol reported late last week that investigations into the fatality are continuing.
